On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 03:01:45PM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote: > My locale is set to LANG=en_US.UTF-8. I write primarily in text-based > applications such as emacs and alpine, and I want to learn how to enter > accented characters so I can type, for example, Résumé rather than Resume.
My approach is a little different, and does not rely as much on my failing memory, or a compose key. Over the years, I've built a table of special characters, digraphs, which I use for cut-and-paste into web pages and libreoffice documents: http://server-sky.com/Digraph I have a dual-screen desktop, and when I am working on a document that needs special characters, I bring up the document on one side and the Digraph page on the other. This works for small bits of text, like "résumé". However, in that particular case, I forgo the accents if the verb and the noun are easily distinguishable by context. If the reader is a pompous ass, or intends to hire one, there are many better opportunities. Big equations require special composition languages. I use latex for documents like scientific papers, and libreoffice for casual stuff. "TeX for the Impatient" by Abrams et. al. has a 17 page index of special characters, and the ascii line noise that produces them. Knuth's "The TeXbook" (for the more patient) has a 25 page index. Then there are Arabic, Hindi, and Chinese ... those may be essential for under-30's by the time they reach my age, after the AI translation-bots develop unfriendly agendas. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
